Saturday, February 18, 2017

With reference to my last summation, I am not arguing that Muslims are necessarily militant, or that all schools of Islam are militant.

I am indicating that the fundamental ideology of Islam, as represented by the Koran and the development of the religion in its foundational years, is significantly, if not essentially militant, as that of Judaism also was.

This militancy, however, my be reinterpreted in non-violent terms by hermeneutic strategies and forms of socialization that differ from the original militant orientation. Such interpretive approaches, though not dominant in Islam, have been developed from within Islam, such as the ideas of Ibn Arabi on the unity of spirit as manifest in all religions, dramatized in the famous lines from his Tarjuman al-ashwaq, translated as The Interpreter of Desires:

My heart has become capable of every form: it is apasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Kaaba and theTables of the Torah and the book of the Qur'an.I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love'sCamels take, that is my religion and my faith.

Such non-violent militancy has also been enabled by the modification of Islam by other cultures, as in South-West Nigeria, Senegal, it seems, and in the West.

In the face of Cornelius' concession to Kadiri that the accounts of systemic terrorism by Fulani herdsmen are suspect, what are we to say to the Fulani herdsmen's public justifications of some of the most heinous of these massacres, such as at Agatu and Southern Kaduna?

What may be a critical response to the fact that there has been no rebuttal from the Fulani herdsmen and their umbrella organization, the Miyeti Allah, headed by some of the most prominent Northern Nigerian Muslims as well as their political enablers in the Northern Nigerian Muslim political class, from the President himself to other figures such as former Kano state governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and Kaduna state governor El Rufai, even to those massacres they are accused of which they have not publicly justified, such as the Enugu state massacre?

Why have the reactions of the political enablers of the terrorists at best consisted in efforts to dilute the gravity of these acts of terror by either ignoring them, until forced to comment by outcries by rebels in the political class like Ayoedele Fayose and Femi Fani Kayode, the favorite attitude of Muhammadu Buhari, the Fulani national ruler?

Another approach is to respond by trying to gift lands belonging to other Nigerians to the terrorists by pursuing such kleptocratic constructions as a national grazing bill which would award free land to these private merchants of cows and death, protected by the laws of the country.

Another is to use the Nigerian army to legitimize the grazing bill plan by using the army as a cow herding institution, the army opening and running ranches in different parts of the nation.

A consistent Sudanese style Janjaweed operation is in full play and some self understood intellectuals are struggling to avoid the implications of what is unfolding before their eyes.

The blending of religion and politics is one of the most deadly cocktails ever and its the worst form of corrosion in Nigerian politics.The absolutist Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity-in the co-opting of its founder's pacifist message by the Roman Empire-and Islam, have been among the most destructive exemplars of this. Christianity's militant culture has been heavily diluted by the Reformation, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions and Western secularism. That of Judaism suffered with the Roman occupation and the dispersal of the Jews but has been revived in the name of Jewish/Israeli nationalism. That of Islam has remained untouched on account of freedom from fundamental upheavals at the global centres of Muslim power. The Northern Nigerian brand of Islam is toxic to other persuasions. There is no avoiding this fact, demonstrated in the volatile history of the region since the 1950s, a pervasive influence from which no large scale social interaction from that region is exempt, even as commentators like Farooq Kperogi engage in futile efforts to decouple Fulani herdsmen terrorism and Northern Muslim politics as a system, ignoring the history represented by the Fulani achieving their dominance in Northern Nigeria through the colonial initiative represented by the Nigerian wing of the Fulani jihad in which Uthman Dan Fodio employed political populism, religious puritanism and military might in entrenching a politico/religious agenda in the region led by his fellow Fulani.

To the best of my understanding, the only hope Nigerians have to escape from the clutches of the right wing Northern Muslim fanatics, for whom the 2011 Boko Haram resurgence and the Fulani herdsmen terrorist escalation are simply various manifestations, is to undo the 1914 amalgamation of North and South and create independence for the Christian groups in the North from the Muslim majority in that region through a restructuring of the nation or dissolution and remaking of new nations from the current nation.

The brew that shapes the strategies of Northern Muslim politics unifies its politicians in such arrangements as the Northern Governors Forum, which has no counterpart in the South, to the best of my knowledge, representing an ideology that constitutes the most consistently unified bloc in Nigerian politics, while the SE and the SW remain in continuous conflict and the SS seats uneasily between them.

This arrangement is a like a damaged pot from which water is constantly leaking yet not only are some determined not to mend the pot they oppose efforts to remake the pot or break it completely and create something new from the shards.

This may be seen as the core problem of Nigeria's damaged nationhood, other afflictions, such as corruption, flowing from this absence of a shared national identity.

In the face of Cornelius' concession to Kadiri that the accounts of systemic terrorism by Fulani herdsmen are suspect, what are we to say to the Fulani herdsmen's public justifications of some of the most heinous of these massacres, such as at Agatu and Southern Kaduna?

What may be a critical response to the fact that there has been no rebuttal from the Fulani herdsmen and their umbrella organization, the Miyeti Allah, headed by some of the most prominent Northern Nigerian Muslims as well as their political enablers in the Northern Nigerian Muslim political class, from the President himself to other figures such as former Kano state governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and Kaduna state governor El Rufai, even to those massacres they are accused of which they have not publicly justified, such as the Enugu state massacre?

Why have the reactions of the political enablers of the terrorists at best consisted in efforts to dilute the gravity of these acts of terror by either ignoring them, until forced to comment by outcries by rebels in the political class like Ayoedele Fayose and Femi Fani Kayode, the favorite attitude of Muhammadu Buhari, the Fulani national ruler?

Another approach is to respond by trying to gift lands belonging to other Nigerians to the terrorists by pursuing such kleptocratic constructions as a national grazing bill which would award free land to these private merchants of cows and death, protected by the laws of the country.

Another is to use the Nigerian army to legitimize the grazing bill plan by using the army as a cow herding institution, the army opening and running ranches in different parts of the nation.

A consistent Sudanese style Janjaweed operation is in full play and some self understood intellectuals are struggling to avoid the implications of what is unfolding before their eyes.

The blending of religion and politics is one of the most deadly cocktails ever and its the worst form of corrosion in Nigerian politics.The absolutist Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity-in the co-opting of its founder's pacifist message by the Roman Empire-and Islam, have been amomng the most destructive exemplars of this. The Northern Nigerian brand of Islam is toxic to other persuasions. There is no avoiding this fact, demonstrated in the volatile history of the region since the 1950s, a pervasive influence from which no large scale social interaction from that region is exempt, even as commentators like Farooq Kperogi engage in futile efforts to decouple Fulani herdsmen terrorism and Northern Muslim politics as a system, ignoring the history represented by the Fulani achieving their dominance in Northern Nigeria through the colonial initiative represented by the Nigerian wing of the Fulani jihad in which Uthman Dan Fodio employed political populism, religious puritanism and military might in entrenching a politico/religious agenda in the region led by his fellow Fulani.

To the best of my understanding, the only hope Nigerians have to escape from the clutches of the right wing Northern Muslim fanatics, for whom the 2011 Boko Haram resurgence and the Fulani herdsmen terrorist escalation are simply various manifestations, is to undo the 1914 amalgamation of North and South and create independence for the Christian groups in the North from the Muslim majority in that region through a restructuring of the nation or dissolution and remaking of new nations from the current nation.

The brew that shapes the strategies of Northern Muslim politics unifies its politicians in such arrangements as the Northern Governors Forum, which has no counterpart in the South, to the best of my knowledge, representing an ideology that constitutes the most consistently unified bloc in Nigerian politics, while the SE and the SW remain in continuous conflict and the SS seats uneasily between them.

This arrangement is a like a damaged pot from which water is constantly leaking yet not only are some determined not to mend the pot they oppose efforts to remake the pot or break it completely and create something new from the shards.

This may be seen as the core problem of Nigeria's damaged nationhood, other afflictions, such as corruption, flowing from this absence of a shared national identity.

​In the face of Cornelius' concession to Kadiri that the accounts of systemic terrorism by Fulani herdsmen are suspect, what are we to say to the Fulani herdsmen's public justifications of some of the most heinous of these massacres, such as at Agatu and Southern Kaduna?

What may be a critical response to the fact that there has been no rebuttal from the Fulani herdsmen and their umbrella organization, the Miyeti Allah, headed by some of the most prominent Northern Nigerian Muslims as well as their political enablers in the Northern Nigerian Muslim political class, from the President himself to other figures such as former Kano state governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and Kaduna state governor El Rufai, even to those massacres they are accused of which they have not publicly justified, such as the Enugu state massacre?

Why have the reactions of the political enablers of the terrorists at best consisted in efforts to dilute the gravity of these acts of terror by either ignoring them, until forced to comment by outcries by rebels in the political class like Ayoedele Fayose and Femi Fani Kayode, the favorite attitude of Muhammadu Buhari, the Fulani national ruler?

Another approach is to respond by trying to gift lands belonging to other Nigerians to the terrorists by pursuing such kleptocratic constructions as a national grazing bill which would award free land to these private merchants of cows and death, protected by the laws of the country.

Another is to use the Nigerian army to legitimize the grazing bill plan by using the army as a cow herding institution, the army opening and running ranches in different parts of the nation.

A consistent Sudanese style Janjaweed operation is in full play and some self understood intellectuals are struggling to avoid the implications of what is unfolding before their eyes.

The blending of religion and politics is one of the most deadly cocktails ever and its the worst form of corrosion in Nigerian politics.The Northern Nigerian brand of Islam is toxic to other persuasions. There is no avoiding this fact, demonstrated in the volatile history of the region since the 1950s, a pervasive influence from which no large scale social interaction from that region is exempt, even as commentators like Farooq Kperogi engage in futile efforts to decouple Fulani herdsmen terrorism and Northern Muslim politics as a system, ignoring the history represented by the Fulani achieving their dominance in Northern Nigeria through the colonial initiative represented by the Nigerian wing of the Fulani jihad in which Uthman Dan Fodio employed political populism, religious puritanism and military might in entrenching a politico/religious agenda in the region led by his fellow Fulani.

To the best of my understanding, the only hope Nigerians have to escape from the clutches of the right wing Northern Muslim fanatics, for whom the 2011 Boko Haram resurgence and the Fulani herdsmen terrorist escalation are simply various manifestations, is to undo the 1914 amalgamation of North and South in a restructuring or dissolution of the country.

This brew that shapes the strategies of Northern Muslim politics unifies its politicians in such arrangements as the Northern Governors Forum, which has no counterpart in the South, to the best of my knowledge, representing an ideology that constitutes the most consistently unified bloc in Nigerian politics, while the SE and the SW remain in continuous conflict and the SS seats uneasily between them.

This arrangement is a like a damaged pot from which water is constantly leaking yet not only are some determined not to mend the pot they oppose efforts to remake the pot or break it completely and create something new from the shards.

OK, logically and reasonably: The loose-lipped Norman G. Finkelstein is a fink .

Don't waste your time listening to him.

As to your proposal that "having sexual intercourse with a woman that a man is not legally married to should be criminalised in law as a rape", wouldn't it cause more problems than it could solve? Well, as I told you earlier, an hour before the Sabbath ended I had read the beginning of Volume 4, chapters 143 (Honouring Father and Mother) 144 (Honour due to the Teacher, the Scholar, the Aged, and the Priest) and 145 ( Laws Concerning Marriage) in Code of Jewish Law : Kitzur Shulhan Arukh - Rabbi Solomon Ganzfried -translated by Hyman E. Goldin

Let me just quote three items to give you a clue, from " Laws Concerning Marriage"

1. "It is the duty of every man to take a wife to himself, in order to fulfil the precept of propagation. This precept becomes obligatory on a man as soon as he reaches the age of eighteen. At any rate, no man should pas his twentieth year without taking a wife. Only in the event when one is deeply engrossed in the study of Torah, and he is afraid that marriage might interfere with his studies, may he delay marrying, provided he is not lustful"

18. "One who is suspected of having intercourse with a non-Jewess and thereafter she was converted to Judaism, he us not permitted to marry her"

19. "A non-Jew who has intercourse with a Jewess and thereafter he was converted to Judaism, he is not permitted to marry her."

You know better than anyone else in this forum that such your proposal would not see the light of day, would certainly not get a second reading in the Naija senate - the pastors would be the first to oppose such a proposition; the bard sings about " adulterers in churches" - that's where they are and of course the Islamists are going to insist on "wa ma malakat aymanukum!" ( "and those whom your right hand possesses")

I wish that I could bring this exchange with you to a conclusive end with something like these gracious words of appreciation in the final letter from Al-Shaykh Salim al-Bishri al-Maliki, the then head of Al Azhar which concluded his marathon polite exchange of letters (112 letters altogether) with a Lebanese Shia alim, Sayyid 'Abd al-Husayn Sharaf al-Din al-Musawi recorded in the classic Al-Muraja'at .

As you said, we have now flogged this horse/ subject matter to death, but your patience and perseverance in this matter has not been in vain - I must confess that I am now more persuaded than before that there's a lot more to it than meets the eye about these vile accusations against Fulani Herdsmen. We can understand the occasional sporadic clashes that could be inevitable - just as some of the problems the children of Israel experienced during their forty year wanderings in the wilderness getting permission/ not getting permission to pass through other people's lands etc., but the maliciously hysterical media's efforts to give the impression that battalions of Fulani herdsmen armed to the teeth with AK-47's have been invading communities and willy-nilly pillaging , killing and raping women who they find on their way, is nothing less than the evil inclination at work. Of course every imaginable kind of gangsters do their looting, killing and raping whilst they and some of their victims blame it on "Fulani herdsmen" - that's what they do. As said, the Fulani herdsmen are their scapegoats. (Like a young lady who once came up to me, to confide in me that she had been impregnated "by Cornelius" Cornelius? I asked her, " Which Cornelius? " - "Cornelius Hamelberg", she replied. That's my name, I told her. She fainted. That's what some of these people do, impersonate you. The guy who supposedly impregnated her could just as well have said that he was Cornelius the Fulani Herdsman, as in "We seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel" - Now imagine if she had told me that she had been raped by a guy called Cornelius ! Or she / they had gone around telling people that she/ they had been raped by a guy named Cornelius H - a Fulani herdsman - then by now some of the Enugu guys who are currently divorcing their wives would have turned my ass to grazing grass....

I'm done with the matter. I see that Nigerian Muse has not even mentioned " Fulani Herdsmen" , Not a word.

G'nite

Ogbeni C

On Saturday, 18 February 2017 19:38:32 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:

Cornelius!! You are a joker which makes it impossible for you to tolerate the truth and recognize facts. From your sentimental and emotional state of mind, you believe that truth is not constant and as such it is bendable. Exhibiting your joking and truth bending ability, you wrote, "Ogbeni Kadiri ..... At this point you are beginning to remind me of the obduracy - and wickedness of some of the Holocaust deniers of which ilk there are several categories of liars." Before Hitler, there were Holocausts against American Indians, Australian and New Zealand aborigins and against Black Africans. Which of these is the greatest depends on our perception. The parents of Norman G. Finkelstein were Auschwitz survivors, yet he had reason to write a book, in 2000, titled : THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY - Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. He wrote, "My parents often wondered why I would grow so indignant at the falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide. The most obvious answer is that it has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and US support for these polices. ....//..... In the face of the sufferings of African Americans, Vietnamese and Palestinians, my mother's credo always was: We are all Holocaust victims." It should be clear to you that not all Fulani are herdsmen and that there are Fulani Professors, Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers and Administrators permanently resident in many communities in Nigeria. Fulani people have no specific state attached to their ethnic group in Nigeria, rather they belong to the state in which they have permanently been resident for centuries and from generations to generation.Just as it was in Agatu, there has been dispute over if Fulani belong to the communities in which they are resident with the intention to refuse them political representations and rights in the country. In some cases the ensuing fracas have been very bloody between Fulani and others in the (host) community. The weakest link in the dispute between Fulani and their host are the herdsmen who are constantly blamed for attacking communities and perpetrating atrocities. My point is that it is not physically possible to go into combats in the company of cows and as such Fulani herdsmen are just the easiest group to scapegoat for communal mayhem between Fulani and others.

He who feels it knows, you wrote, similarly, I will add that he who sees it feels it too. Thou shall not kill fellow human being should be sacrosanct at all times. We do not need to quantify the number of murders before they are considered horrible acts. I have never disputed that Fulani people might have been involved in interethnic conflicts in Nigeria resulting in the lost of lives and destruction of properties. Fulani have been killed as other ethnic groups in disputes. What I have disputed is the attribution of crimes arising out of such conflicts to Fulani herdsmen.

Sometimes ago when the discussion of rape came up on this forum, I suggested that having sexual intercourse with a woman that a man is not legally married to should be criminalised in law as a rape. I premised that suggestion on the fact that only the man had the power and urge to forcibly penetrate a woman, therefore it should be explicitly clear in law to a man that mounting a woman with whom one is not legally married to is illegal and criminal regardless of if the woman consents to it or not. Yes, Cornelius, I abhor rape crime as much as you or any other person. Nevertheless it should not be used as a political propaganda to tarnish a group one is opposed to politically. It is only in a fable that an elephant can fly, equally true it is only in a fable that two Fulani herdsmen leading a flock of about a hundred cow would be capable of invading a village, kill men, rape women, burn down houses and escape unapprehend with their flock of cows from the crime scene.

... You know that the camera lenses cannot be deceived in the same way that Ogbeni Kadiri's eyes cannot be deceived...., you wrote. You are smart Cornelius, but you are not clever. In his 1964 book, titled: A curtain of Ignorance - CHINA - HOW AMERICA IS DECEIVED, Felix Greene exposed how American Press and Officials were lying with photographs. He wrote, "We remember pictures longer than we remember words. There are few more effective ways of creating lasting impressions than by visual images - by photographs or cartoons. And by the same token there is hardly a more effective method of creating erroneous images if one should desire to do so." He illustrated the erroneous images where the same pictures were published as slain Viet Cong guerrillas in South Vietnam and exhausted refugee from Communist China. Edgar Snow, in his 1961 book, The Other Side of the River, showed a photograph that has been used on several occasions to show Communist brutality, though the picture itself was a photograph of one of the Kuomintang street executions which were very common in Shanghai before the Communist took over the city. Pictures can be edited and manipulated to give erroneous impression and those are the characters that I observed in your enormous links. Pictures of a lonely rifle carrying herdsman grazing his cows in the bush is published in association to the headline, Fulani herdsmen rape our wives and destroy our farms. When I express my displeasure at this manipulative information, you indirectly accuse me of wickedness, desiring the killing of our brothers and raping of our sisters. Common Cornelius, the head is not just a hat-shelf good only to hang a cap but to think, logically and reasonably.

There are those among them who say it was not six million who perished in the Holocaust. The deniers come in various grades. There are those who want to reduce the number of Jewish people that perished to less than six million martyrs and there are those who continue counting down even further, to 5 million souls, 4, 3, 2, 1 - the same disciples of Satan, the same anti-Christ people who say that one Jesus of Nazareth was not crucified and about the Holocaust, the worst of them say that the actual number of Jews who perished in the Holocaust was also zero - that it never happened at all, that Hitler was just a bad Jewish nightmare a bad Jewish joke concocted to deceive gentiles. Now wake up Herr Kadiri ! Listen here and listen good - this is about our Nigerian brothers and SISTERS!

I know. Like unbelieving Thomas, your intransigence is understandable: never mind all the media reports about Fulani herdsmen 's wanton rapes and wanton murder , maybe it's the Muslim in you that won't be satisfied with less than four witnesses for each and every rape atrocity committed - and then I doubt that you would even be satisfied by other witnesses' testimonies - you would most probably like to be one of the four witnesses - and even then - I know that you will probably tell us what I already know, have seen and experienced : that some low grade magicians are capable of performing the Indian rope trick - create an illusion for you to see - but the cameras film the same event and lo - you realise that the camera lenses cannot be deceived in the same way that Ogbeni Kadiri's eyes can be deceived. - as in

Yesterday, I got back home at 1.30 a.m. after a very informative evening with a West African man of knowledge (an old friend of yours - he sends you his warmest greetings. Tomorrow, after the Sabbath I will phone you and give you his telephone number because he wants to talk to you, before he returns to Africa in six days' time). What he told me was most shocking, left me speechless, he seemed to know what he was talking about - first hand but I could hardly believe my ears. On his authority I have it that it's a well known fact that the Fulani herdsmen from Mauritania through Senegal and all the way to Lake Chad have a culture of rape - he even took it one step to far, some disgusting talk about bestiality which I absolutely didn't want to hear - you can guess the rest - but this would be too hot for the likes of an apologist like you and for the sake of politeness and maintaining good relations with the Fulani people far too volatile to share this kind of information on the forum - something as unfortunate as this:

Oluwatoyin's voodoo concoction would appear to have worked effectively on Cornelius who suddenly volte-faced acrobatically to find Fulani herdsmen guilty of murder, arson and rape without any physical evidence.

On Saturday, 4th of February 2017 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote, "Many thanks to Prof Kperogi, for this timely intervention. I'm sure that apart from that ''ignorant and hate-filled preacher by the name of Apostle Johnson Suleiman'' and some members of his congregation, every good-hearted person is with you on this one. Apostle Johnson Suleiman, in the name of Jesus or even in the name of common sense, ought to know better.

The following day, Sunday 5th February 2017, Oluwatoyin Adepoju, in his edited post on this list serve, voodooed Cornelius Hamelberg thus, ''I have a problem with the tone of the Farooq intervention and happy jumping on that by Cornelius.

Tacitly referring to both Cornelius and Farooq, Oluwatoyin wrote, ''Gentlemen, can you please point out to readers your contributions on this subject as Fulani herdsmen set the nation ablaze from the Middle Belt to the South East, contributions worthy in scope and consistency in relation to the long running character of the wanton vampirism Fulani herdsmen have made synonymous with themselves across the nation?

...//... We now have a Christian pastor calling for a response in kind agst those who chose to wash their mouths with the blood of other human beings while the Nigerian govt aided the murderers and your response consists largely in adopting a stance of righteous indignation.'' With that voodoo concoction, Oluwatoyin Adepoju gurgled his mouth to transform Cornelius Hamelberg into a fantastic google-crat and a dogmatic believer in google-cracy. Thereafter, Cornelius began to sing Fulani herdsmen's maiming, killings, rapes and arsons like a doped canary. On me, Oluwatoyin Adepoju's voodoo concoction works like an effigy in the water. That is why I will continue to demand direct or indirect evidence from anyone, especially Oluwatoyin Adepoju and Cornelius Hamelberg, that linked Fulani herdsmen to the maiming, killing, raping and burning down of villages in Nigeria. May I add that it is very insulting to intelligence to refer readers to google links where it is stated that heinous crimes werecommitted by suspected Fulani herdsmen without any proof. Showing a picture of a rifle carrying herdsman amidst his herds in the bush is not a proof that he has deployed his weapon against innocent people. Political violence in Agatu, for instance, had nothing to do with Fulani herdsmen and I stand to be corrected on that with facts.

I congratulate Cornelius for his efforts in patiently dismantling the efforts of an inhuman strategy of supporting everything identified with the Nigerian govt, even when it is a terrorist campaign agst Nigerians represented by Fulani herdsmen terrorism aided by Nigeria's Fulani led govt.

The basis of your certainty is that "No woman has ever come out to claim she has been raped by Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria, but some bachelors in the social and print media have claimed that "our wives have been raped by Fulani herdsmen" - and thereby you too became that which you wrongfully accuse me of being , namely "a fanatic google-crat and an absolute believer in google-cracy that everything in the google is true and the only truth" - because it seems that for you too Professor Google is the only source of your asserting your " No woman no cry" - that "No woman has ever come out to claim she has been raped by Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria". Otherwise, who told you that no woman has ever been raped by a Fulani herdsman? As the Almighty asked your ancestor Adam, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

Ogbeni Kadiri, you yourself have commanded: "We should be honest and truthful all the time in our dealings with one another."

This may be the reason why most wives and other honourable women would feel too ashamed to come out and say that they have been raped. Already, in Enugu men are divorcing their wives on those grounds. It's also possible that for some men who don't want/love their wives any more, the Fulani herdsmen provide the perfect excuse for divorcing their wives - accuse them of concealing the fact that they have been raped by Fulani herdsmen. ( You know that in Sweden too it's only now that women are less afraid to come out and confess to having been raped, because it's less of a moral stigma than before - so rapes cases are being more frequently reported in Sweden these days - not necessarily that there were fewer rape cases in the last century and earlier .)

This remind me of another joke:

A member of one synagogue said to the member of another synagogue," Our wonderful rabbi talks daily with the Almighty!

"How do you know? asked the other man

" He told me !"

"He might have been lying"

" Nonsense - the Almighty wouldn't talk daily with a liar! "

( The literal elements to the joke "talks daily with the Almighty = prayer and supplication

The Almighty talking daily with he liars - through the various scriptures )

But on a more mundane level let us suppose that one thousand women come out and say that they have been raped by Fulani herdsmen and it was variously reported in the Nigerian media, which you Ogbeni Kadiri google joyously everyday - what then would you say ? That they were all liars, ashawoes, "toto-sellers" ?

What future does a Muslim woman have in her community , if she ever comes out and confesses to having been raped (with even four witnesses to testify on her behalf...) As we know, Enugu for example is not under Sharia Law and still some men are divorcing their wives and girlfriends...

Thank you Cornelius for asking me if there is a Yoruba Commandment against bearing false witness. There is such Yoruba Commandment but of what use will it be to tell a fanatic google-crat and an absolute believer in google-cracy that everything in the google is true and the only truth? No woman has ever come out to claim she has been raped by Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria, but some bachelors in the social and print media have claimed that "our wives have been raped by Fulani herdsmen." It is an exaggerated lie to claim to have caught the glimpse of an elephant that ran pass at the speed of light.

You are absolutely right Ogbeni Kadiri: jive as nigger Cornelius is not serious, in fact he was only joking , but he did read further and replied to what you said, but instead of replying to that you chose to reply to the joke but still have not answered my question: Isn't there a Yoruba commandment/ code of honour that thou shalt not bear false witness against thy brother? (Was thinking of The Bro Code - another culture)

Still barking up the same tree: More seriously you are saying that in the absence of any specific charges by name and number, against the otherwise nebulous (some say murderous) Fulani Herdsmen, the accusations/ allegations are useless, meaningless, maybe even nothing but malicious fabrications against them, just as you have previously charged : "The links posted by Cornelius are not based on truth or facts, rather they are based on prejudice and lies against Fulani herdsmen"

In Israel for example, it's not always that the law enforcement / security can furnish the general public with the specific names and addresses of the terrorists - which does not mean that their handiwork, the bloody footage we sometimes see on TV in the aftermath of terrorist attacks "are not based on truth or facts, rather they are based on prejudice and lies" (BTW , there was a point when I thought that one more attack from Hamas/ al-Aqsa martyrs Brigade/Islamic Jihad etc., the Shin bet would go after the leaders of the military wing of those organisations, just the way that the Nigerian authorities would like to get hold of Abubakar Shekau, the way that Brother Obama went after Osama Bin Ladin (Just imagine, if Osama were still alive, Trump would be talking and tweeting about going after him all day long)

In the case of the Holocaust you had a super sleuth like Simon Wiesenthal who went after specific people.

In the tragic case of the mass rape of Yazidi women, in such difficult - genocidal circumstances ( a terror war situation) the victims have not been able to identify and press charges against all those who sexually assaulted them.

You keep on asking, why should cowboys leave their cows and go chasing and raping vulnerable women? The fact is, shit happens, sometimes not by design. Shit happens often, often following a pattern

Nigerian security has to be more effective in protecting vulnerable sections of Nigerian citizens from the violent crimes being attributed to Fulani herdsmen. Issuing ID cards for Fulani herdsmen is a good move - let us hope that some other perpetrators don't commit crimes in their name and leave Fulani herdsmen ID cards behind, for their identification ( another form of bearing false witness against thy neighbour)

Article 2 of the Bro Code: "A Bro is always entitled to do something stupid, as long as the rest of the Bros are all doing it."

Article 7; A Bro never admits he can't drive stick. Even after an accident.

Article 82 :If two Bros get into a heated argument over something and one says something out of line, the other shall not expect him to say " take it back" or " apologize" to make amends. That's inhuman."

Article 147 : If a Bro sees another Bro get into a fight, he immediately has his Bro's back"

On Tuesday, 14 February 2017 19:32:03 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:

You are not serious, Cornelius!! The seventh sentence in your post of 13th February 2017, stated emphatically thus, "The charges are serious : rape" and I mentioned your name as the writer in my response. My understanding of that written sentence of yours is that the charges of rape against Fulani herdsmen are serious. Since I am unaware of any rape charges in any Nigerian court against Fulani herdsmen, I followed the quotation of your seventh sentence with questions to you for answer. The questions were : Can you please furnish us with the case-file of rape charges against Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria and in which courts were they arraigned and charged?; What are the names of the arraigned and charged Fulani herdsmen?; and what were there pleads against charges levelled against them? The connection between your seventh sentence and my questions is so direct that even our children in Africa who are still at the age of a black slate and chalk in schools will understand that you were not accused of being a rapist, covert or overt. You intentionally become a bull, seeing only red in my questions and rushed belatedly to gore me instead of answering the questions.

You wrote, "Your headline is as bad as some of the anti-Fulani headlines giving the impression that Cornelius Hamelberg is the one - God forbid - who is being charged for rape." It is incontrovertible that the seventh sentence in your post of 13th February 2017 is what you branded as my headline. Nevertheless, I am consoled by your unconscious admission that all the headlines in your googles, amnesty international and human rights watch concerning Fulani herdsmen are anti-Fulani headlines. Case closed.

Isn't there a Yoruba commandment of honour that thou shalt not bear false witness against thy brother.

Have mercy! Please change the headline! I refuse to read any further! Your headline is a bad as some of the anti-Fulani herdsmen headlines, giving as it does the impression that Cornelius Hamelberg is the one - God forbid - who is being charged with rape:

The charges are serious : rape - Cornelius Hamelberg.

A person of malicious intent need read no further, before gleefully spreading the fake news. I'm thinking of poor Julian Assange who has been holed up in the Ecuador Embassy in London for the past four years and five months.

Please ....

On Monday, 13 February 2017 22:17:47 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:

The charges are serious : rape - Cornelius Hamelberg.

Can you please furnish us with the case file of rape-charges against Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria and in which courts were they arraigned and charged? What are the names of the arraigned and charged Fulani herdsmen? What were their pleas against the charges levelled against them?

You Ogbeni Kadiri want the whole world to believe that all the reports by the Nigerian military and Police, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the thousands of corpses of Nigerians killed by Fulani herdsmen and Fulani militants, their blood crying out from the earth and thousands of victims who survived to tell their tale - you want us to believe that the reports that all those who have been badly injured and maimed and report of those who have been raped by Fulani herdsmen/militants "are not based on truth or facts, rather they are based on prejudice and lies against Fulani herdsmen?"- Cornelius Hamelberg.

Can you please avail us with the Nigerian Military and Police reports in which it was specifically confirmed that Fulani herdsmen killed, maimed, raped and destroyed villages en-route their grazing paths in Nigeria?

What are the names of the human beings behind Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that wrote reports confirming the discovery of thousands of corpses of Nigerians killed by Fulani herdsmen? What are the evidences produced by those organisations to pin those crimes on Fulani herdsmen?

I am neither a Fulani nor a herdsman but I am a human being just as the Fulani herdsmen. The difference between me and your cohorts is that I put myself in position of Fulani herdsmen and figure out how possible it is for them to commit the type of crimes attributed to them in a community where they are extremely in a minority and in the company of their herds. Factually, the Fulani herdsmen breed their cattle for commercial and economic reasons which make it impossible for them to descend on the potential consumers of their products and kill them. If I were a Fulani herdsman driving about 100 cows to graze near a village, will I abandon my cattle at the risk of losing them to cow rustlers (thieves) in pursuit of a woman or a girl to rape? How many Fulani herdsmen accompanied by their cattle would be required to perpetrate the type of horrors attributed to them? I ask this question since I saw only one armed Fulani herdsman with a rifle grazing his cattle in the bush in one of the links posted by you and in another one, there were two Fulani herdsmen armed with wooden rods grazing their cows in the bush and not on farmlands.

It is said in my mother tongue is that, Eni má riré gbà, ètó ni ki o sé réré, which literally translates to, if you want justice for yourself, you must practise justice to others. There were occasions when Fulani herdsmen had trespassed into farmlands but their organisation, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, had intervened for out of court financial compensations to farmers whose plants had been destroyed by cattle or as in the case of Olu Falae in Ondo State, through court adjudication. Not all Europeans with moustache are Hitler(s); and not all Jews are Shylock(s), therefore, not all Fulani herdsmen are murderers and rapists. It is unjust to condemn Fulani herdsmen on unproven allegations.

Let me also be pedantic. I crave your indulgence. Please be patient with me. When it comes to style , if I could, I would much prefer to dribble like Jay Jay Okocha than the Argentinian bull Diego Maradona.

I have been made to realise that this is not a time for more pedantry or bigotry or spitting fire, unnecessarily.

If it was - God forbid - my mother, daughter, sister or my dearly beloved wife that had been - God forbid - raped by some Fulani herdsmen over there in Nigeria, methinks that by now I would probably be crying out for their blood or at the very least seething to bring them all to Justice. Now all I can declare is empathy and understanding of the plight of my Igbo brothers, their mothers, wives, daughters, sisters in the danger zone - those that have been raped. Ideally I want to be my brothers' keeper and therefore refuse to go on prevaricating on this very serious matter.

You Ogbeni Kadiri want the whole world to believe that all the reports by the Nigerian military and Police, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the thousands of corpses of Nigerians killed by Fulani herdsmen and Fulani militants, their blood crying out from the earth and the thousands of victims who survived to tell their tale - you want us to believe that the reports by all those who have been badly injured and maimed and the reports from all those who have been raped by Fulani herdsmen/ militants "are not based on truth or facts, rather they are based on prejudice and lies against Fulani herdsmen."?Come again!

Once again we are back to a position akin to when the authorities were first intimated that the Chibok girls had been abducted b